I stupidly watched the movie Marley & Me today....geez, am I a glutton for punishment, or what? It hit sooo very close to home. My old black beauty of a canine was not the unruly terror that Marley was, but she was my first baby, my first love. She still is.
That day, the one every pet owner dreads, is so swiftly approaching our family and for me, it breaks my heart. In the movie, John Grogan, asks Marley to give him a sign when it's time so he doesn't have to make that awful decision by himself - but Marley didn't. How could he? He got sick.
Animals are man's best friend, because unlike people, they love you unconditionally with all your flaws. They befriend us, trust us, and love us. Letting go of that kind of bond will leave a hole in your life.
Tonight, I watched my friend struggle to get up because of arthritis in her hips and later try to scratch her ear with a paw that just didn't want to quite work for her. I got up to fill her bowl and let her out and what does she do? Wag her tail in anticipation of my attention as if no pain or discomfort existed.
You know, she was the one who comforted me when my heart was broke for the first time. She's the one I cried to when relatives passed and she was my first bedmate. She was my companion for 2 am feedings and bouts of illlness. She's in my wedding album the day I got married with a tulle bow tied regally around her neck. I actually made the photographer come to my home and take her picture with me and I'm so glad I did. She was beside me when I brought four kids into this world and she has always guarded them as her own, unselfishly.
The whole time I was watching that darned movie, I thought, I should turn this off. It's not going to end well. I mean, I had to quit reading the book because I knew it wasn't going to end well. It was like watching a train wreck.
I am hoping my train wreck is still a ways off, but everyday, I notice something new, something a little more pronounced in Mocha's gait or her behavior. Signals. But, then, she'll come to me, act like old times and I'll go on. We all do, putting that train wreck out of our minds another day. How did fourteen and a half years slip by so fast? The day I brought her home, my Mom and little brother had to actually pick her up from the APA because I had a job interview at Washington University (which I didn't get) and they picked me up with her in the car. My bundle of black fuzz who stole my heart in the kennel the minute she knawed on my overall buckles and laid on her back while I stroked her and fell asleep.
Damn movie.
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